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As a former Infrant/Netgear user (now QNAP), I am glad to see Netgear step it up. It seems like they are offering a much more competitive product this time around. The acquisition of Infrant definitely let some lumpy products in (bad power supplies, faulty wiring of fans, poor iSCSI implementation, etc).

Synology better take not because these new offerings from Netgear offer very good value from a hardware point of view. As an owner of a Synology DS212j I am quickly learning the shortcomings of the Synology hardware. We heap praises on them for their OS, DSM, which I agree is slick. It is quickly becoming evident to me that my unit is running out of steam when it comes to the CPU and RAM. Synology has been moving their base amount of RAM to 512 but not all models are there yet. The prices points here are also very aggressive. The inclusion of more GE ports, USB 3.0 ports, and eSATA ports across the range is awesome. Then there is the HDMI port and my HTPC is starting to look silly as the convergence of network devices continues.

Agreed! also an owner of a DS212j. I'm aware it's an entry level model, but still it's not cheap, and you quickly find that you can easily overwork the CPU and RAM to the point where it sits there chocking on its tasks while you wait.. frustrating.i put up with it though because as you point out their OS/DSM is very nice to use indeed.Reply

The CPU especially on the DS212j doesn't have legs to run all that far. Media Indexing can somewhat cripple the unit for days depending on much you have on the NAS. File transfer though seem to task the CPU the most out of my uses. Heck I have a full LAMP stack running a website and forums that runs lighter. It's this kind of functionality that makes my Synology a keeper. Just upgraded to DSM 4.2 and loving the reworked Package Center. I'm hoping to see more additions to the platform in the future.Reply

Which one I should pick up?Im in a debate between the Netgear Readynas 102 and Synolody DS213+ ? Is there any area where the Netgear come short compared to the Synology? Which would give me more features or if not better value/performace/money ratio? thxReply

I recently bought a ReadyNAS Ultra 2... living nightmare that still doesn't work after 2 weeks back and forth with tech support. I went the cheap road and I will be junking this (can't take it back, bought it while traveling in the US) for a Synology. Horrid, horrid, experience.Reply

Interesting that they are using BTRFS as a filesystem. AFAIK, it's still in heavy development.

I once owned a ReadyNAS NV+ and I generally quite liked it, but their interface sucked. Glad to see they have made a new OS. It will be interesting to see how well it stacks up against Synology and so on.Reply

Instead of just listing capacity, could you add the number of drive bays directly? I'm assuming the listed numbers are based on 4TB drives; but barring deliberate firmware restrictions those capacities will be out of date when the next generation of drives become available.Reply

If it is final 2 digits, there are multiple apparent typos in the table. 312 should be 48 unless it maxes out at 2.3TB drives and the 516 should be 64 unless it was rated with 5.25TB drives instead of 4GB ones. Reply

"Therefore, ReadyNAS OS 6.0 is not going to be made available for any of the earlier models (including the Duo v2 / NV+ v2)"

As a Duo v2 owner, this saddens me. Their support of the Duo v2 has been hilariously lackluster. They have almost no ARM support, none of the iOs apps work, and their "dropbox" like ReadyDROP requires a separate network device be installed, so you can't use it on any managed network. I wish I had gotten a Synology instead ... /poutReply

Now what I really see here is Netgear abandoning its commitment to old products. When the Readynas Duo V2 was launched they promised to update the interface for the intel line to ReadyNAS os5. That was end of 2011 and has yet to happen. Now they are announcing an os6 and at least being honest in saying it won't be back ported. I used to love my netgear products but their support has gone to crap lately. Had another unit with a lifetime warrantee they failed to honor. Do not buy netgear.Reply

Own a ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus... Performance is okay. Software is lacking. The fact that Netgear has decided to drop support on a box that's fully capable of running the latest build is ridiculous. Not to mention the promised updates that never came. Bug fixes have been few and far (and I mean far) between. So buyer beware. For $1000 just over a year ago, on a NAS with plenty of power, to get shoved aside like this is a major cause for concern for anyone considering their products. /bitterReply

I concur. I had a Netgear streaming box that stopped working when Windows 7 came out, even though the units were still being sold they never updated them to work with Windows 7 so no more NetGear for me. (Got my eye on a nice QNAP TS-419 ATM. )Reply

I had a readynas for many years. In the early days they had no competition and I think they under invested in developing the platform. The interface barely changed in 10 years. They also clung to the poorly performing custom fpga based designs for too long and were slow to adopt arm processors. Netgear was also slow to add esata or USB 3 to their products, instead clinging to a USB interface that meant that a full backup could run for days. Finally they rolled out USB 3 but the performance of their implementation was no better than USB 2! The only saving grace was the thriving forum where high quality help was always available. Now there's not a single netgear employee active on the forums. It looks like netgear is now attempting to compete on price and features but the competition has had hardware out that can match or exceed netgear's latest offering for at least a year already.Reply